EVENTS

A Bad Faith poll

The New Humanist has a yearly Bad Faith award, given to the person who exemplifies the worst of faith in the previous year. We’ve come off a bad year here in the US, and I thought for sure we’d see the slate filled with idiots from this one country…but this poll demonstrates that fools and dangerous nitwits are a global phenomenon. Every one of these people is deserving. You face a tough decision.

Todd Akin 26.18%

Ghulam Ahmed Bilour 11.06%

Lord Carey 5.16%

Prince Charles 8.57%

Joseph Dias and the Catholic Church in Mumbai 15.21%

Nelson McCausland 2.49%

Cardinal Keith O’Brien 11.61%

Baroness Warsi 19.72%

I notice that while only one American made the list, he’s winning handily. USA! USA! #1! USA!

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I notice that while only one American made the list, he’s winning handily. USA! USA! #1! USA!

Well, when it comes to religious nutbaggery it is pretty hard to compete with someone who argues against abortions for the victims of rape because women supposedly have a magical ability to prevent fertilisation by the sperm of rapists, and so those who suffer ‘true rape’ don’t get pregnant, and those who do get pregnant after rape must not have suffered a genuine rape at all, but must have gotten cold feet the next day, or something. This does seem to be one undeniable case of ‘American exceptionalism’.

*Sigh* It seems that what we Brits lack in quality of religious woo mongers, we make up for in quantity. I mean, five out of eight? And we are supposed to be a pretty secular society without all the raving religious loons infesting other parts of the world.

Every one of those people listed are horrible people. I chose to vote for the Railway Minister of Pakistan because he was calling for people to be murdered. Despite the regressive positions held by the other choices, they weren’t openly calling for people to be murdered.

Ghulam Ahmed Bilour: There was no shortage of bad faith on both sides as the crude anti-Islamic video Innocence of Muslims prompted a global wave of riots and bloodshed this September, but Pakistan’s Railway Minister marked himself out as a spokesperson for stupidity when he appeared on national television to place a bounty on the heads of those who had made the video and call on the militant groups currently engaged in trying to topple his government to carry out the murders. “I invite the Taliban brothers and the al-Qaeda brothers that they should join me in this sacred mission,” he told a press conference. “Along with others, they should also join in the good work. And God willing, whoever is successful I will present one lac dollars (100,000 U.S. dollars) to him.”

Honestly, if Akin WERE the worst in faith for the last year we’d be doing alright. He wields no real authority, managed to allow a Democrat (who, for better or worse, is preferable to either Akin or Luger) to win what should’ve been a safe Republican seat, and served as an example of just how stupid the Republican position on abortion is. At least he’s not an actual representative of government trying to kill developmentally challenged people for blasphemy, or a Catholic hospital employee letting people die because they refuse to save their life.

I scored them based on number of people harmed, how much harm was caused, and how far down the power gradient they’re pissing. The ones that jumped out at me were Akin and Bilour. Bilour scored well for advocating murder but lost points in the how many people were harmed department and the power gradient question (I recall the filmmakers were wealthy religious bullies, so it was a case of one bully going after another). Akin scores big on the number of people harmed. He also ran away with the power gradient contest. You can’t get much lower than attacking rape victims.

In the end, Akin won. Trying to take away the rights of all women by publicly shitting on rape victims absolutely guarantees some kind of Douche of the Year award.

After careful deliberation (ie: whomever I happen to be feeling the most contempt for just at this moment, and there’s plenty of that to go ’round) I chose Joseph Dias & Co (‘cuz if the Savita case shows the RCC at its most evil, this shows it at its most petty).

@3: Note that it’s the British Humanists running the poll, so it’s not surprising the ballot is somewhat weighted to British stories.

Yeah, a tough choice. On balance, I think I’ll have to vote Windsor for the same reasons as Olav.

He’s not the most directly harmful person on the list, but he’s so *embarrassing*. It’s embarrassing enough having a monarchy in the first place, but when a senior member uses his enormous, undeserved privilege to spout bullshit, peddle that bullshit using highly dubious business practices and secretly influence government policies and UK legislation in his favour, then it goes beyond embarrassment. We should be *ashamed*. Of him and of ourselves for allowing those parasites to exist.

I think Akin has been dealt with quite satisfactorily. Bilour is a clear and present danger to the life of specific people, and possibly even the stability of Pakistan. However, the object of his wrath lives safely abroad. Dias and the joint RC Church though didn’t merely threaten someone, they effectively drove him into exile. On return he may be imprisoned or, knowing the general MO in India, killed by a mob.

At this moment in time, I’ll let Dias and his cronies win on villainy.

Speaking of write-ins, I’d like to see Paul Broun from Georgia’s 10th congressional district on the list. Although the “harm” he caused is relatively small compared to PZ’s list, he’s still a damnable religiot anyway.